Cursed Cold Colle
by c'estquatre
Summary: A prominent magus is held hostage by the Icecolle family's new heir, prompting the next Lord of Eulyphis, Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri, into joining the rescue operation with his own ulterior motives. Post-Apocrypha
1. 1

**0/  
**  
 _The old fortress on top of the hill?  
_  
 _…_ _  
_  
 _Nothing in particular, I'm just surprised you asked. You've never shown much interest in this town._  
 _  
…_  
 _  
No, I'm just glad you're asking. After all, you're going to take over the family business one day._  
 _  
…_  
 _  
Don't say that in front of your mother. You know what she would do if she heard you were seriously considering going to New York of all places._  
 _  
…_  
 _  
Wait… your mother is heading up there? Are you sure?!_  
 _  
…_  
 _  
Stay inside. Lock the doors. I'm going after her. That idiot! Even when I told her I'd take care of it if anything happened, that she didn't have any obligations to them anymore._  
 _  
…_  
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You've never met your maternal relatives because they're witches who live at the top of that hill. Your mother's ancestors… they were once called Icecolle._

 **1/**

Lately, my mind has been on my sister. She's… not with us anymore. In fact, my sister has been dead for more than ten years. As a member of our illustrious family, there was no way she died from a paltry accident in the workshop. Neither was the cause a symptom of living in the degenerate modern world like a car accident. My sister died with her fiancée while taking part in a magical war.

While I might call it a war, there were fewer than fourteen combatants. Even so, one of those wars causes enough destruction that even a career soldier would turn aghast. Therefore, I can't help but wonder if my sister had the same look on her face when she died as the corpses of these fifteen hunters littered around me.

"What a waste."

To be a magus, a researcher who delves into the maelstrom of mystery, is to live side by side with death. Any misstep, any imprecision with the connection to a magical formula can immediately lead one into his demise. But that is only an occupational hazard – just like how a chemist must handle dangerous chemicals or a laborer has no choice but to operate heavy machinery. Training can only prepare one for so much; after all, no matter how much of a mystical machine a magus may try to turn himself into… at his core he is merely human.

But I am one of the thirteen above that rabble, a Lord of the Clock Tower. Even if it's only a trickle, I will undoubtedly detect any magical energy that seeks to harm me.

In reply, magical energy rushes from my magic circuits into the familiar that shielded me from the ambush that disposed of all fifteen associates. Like my pride, my familiar is unassailable; it would take at least a spell on the order of High-Thaumaturgy to harm the Monstrous Beast.

"Surprisingly under-equipped and underwhelming. And what have you Lords of the Association always called us? Second-rate, we believe? Yet, how quickly the mighty fall when they leave their sheltered tower."

A voice reverberates from a drum wedged between the ceiling and the wall closest to me. It's a quaint drum, no doubt a relic of the savage indigenous magical foundation in this area. Some poorly tanned animal skin with painted-on markings stretches across the pan. There are some swirls and some crosses but I can't make out any meaning – again, no doubt the relic of a backwater magical foundation that does not work anywhere else in the world. This is evident in how the mystic code seems only capable of amplifying a sound. In the base, technological world, devoid of magecraft, one might refer to it as a "wireless speaker."

"No doubt, dear mistress; after all, why would we send our first or even second-rate hunters for the remnants of third-rates who couldn't even successfully secede?"

A thud and brutal silence for a moment as the mental blow settles – just as I thought, wench. Do not think your jabs can even compare to the herculean blows delivered in a Clock Tower power struggle.

With that thought behind me, I can sense a stronger flow of magical energy in the floor behind those heavy birch doors – the next trap, then. If it is coming from the floor, it is nothing more than a child's game.

How degrading.

With one motion, I grip onto the mane of my familiar and throw myself across her back.

How unpleasant.

Not my familiar, of course. She is the pinnacle of my craft – enough that I could call her the Supreme Mystic Code of my family. I have heard the stories about the familiar of the magus who quelled the Dead Apostle that was to be Disemboweling Sea of Trees and I believe mine not an inferior product.

However, as we approach the next stage in our conquest, I can't help look back at the already fallen. Just looking at them slightly offends me. There's enough sympathy for the families of these poor hunters. Yet, what a waste, not even being able to make it through the first ambush. So much for a rescue. Then again, isn't that the reason I personally forsook my responsibilities to join this little expedition?

Yet, I just can't shake one image, one thought.

I said, how unpleasant.

How unpleasant, was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the savagery that is so rare yet so commonplace in our magecraft-laden world. Lately, my sister has been on my mind, so would I think the same thing if I were to have watched her die as well? 

"If this is the best you can do, enough with your childish games and show yourself!" I attempt to throw my voice so it echoes but the hazel walls absorb the sound. She heard my proclamation though; I can see those obnoxious drums hanging in the corners of this room as well. Surely, they must work as a microphone as well.

"You are the real deal, aren't you? And with a familiar that swims through a sea of materialized curses without any protection…"

"Don't flatter me. You wouldn't even need a specialist to freeze grudges on this level."

"Flattery? No, we would never. Not flattery, not for you. What we don't understand is why you would go to such lengths for such a single person. We understand the El-Melloi faction making such an effort, but you – why have you come so far away from the dungeon you call a home? This has nothing to do with your department, faction, or family."

"There's no need for me to take the moral high ground here. The person in your care has certain skills and certain things that I require. You have that person. You have refused to negotiate. Therefore, I have come to take what is currently yours."

"Are you rationalizing the burglary of another's workshop with _that_ excuse? Truly, you are the real deal aren't you, Lord," she spits out the last word.

I'm not a Lord yet, but I'm too tired of this farce to correct her.

"But if what you say is true then you are not a party in this cold war. We have no reason to obstruct your path. These defenses are meant for an army, not a single, petty thief," she continues. "Thief you may be, but you are still the next Lord of Eulyphis – let it be known that we have shown you respect befitting your station."

The drumming stops. I can hear a multitude of traps being deactivated as doors open. Smiling slightly, I motion my familiar to continue marching forward.

About time.

After riding through what seemed to be a never-ending corridor, the final pair of birch doors crack open announcing my arrival.

"Bram Nuada-Re Sophie-Ri, welcome to our humble abode," someone proclaims from inside the darkness.

There are too many lanterns in the room for the darkness to be truly smothering. However, there are not enough lanterns to illuminate all the corners of the room. Yet, even if I am only able to see a few meters above me, I'm certain the ceiling is littered with drums.

Like a concert hall. How vain.

And at the edge of the darkness is a throne made from birch and hazel, just like the walls and doors in this fortress. Are the legs fused into the wooden floor, or is the floor merely part of the throne? Either way, such an effect can easily be arranged with a few commonplace spells. Yes, that throne may as well speak for the entire house, the entire family.

Nothing but a second-rate house pretending to be aristocrats.

It is a common theory among magi that our ancestors were kings. For that reason, many of the twenty-three families and other noble houses have built castles. But for a degenerating family that ran away from their foundation to-

"We hope your familiar found those spirits palatable. A Soul Eater, is she not?"

My familiar brushes her scales against my hand as I rub underneath her maw.

"Yes." That is annoying to admit. "She enjoyed them very much, thank you for that, Icecolle."

Hearing her name, she rises from her fake wooden throne and walks into the soft lantern light. Like any other practitioner of the dark arts she smells like death. Sacrifice is a large part of spiritual evocation; however, it is not enough that the smell stains our skin. She is different. She is a magus whose entire being is based on cursing others. While that stench may overcome lesser magi, she is nothing special.

"I am glad you have deferred to reason and chosen to parley. Now…"

"No." Softly, with eyebrows creased she shakes her head.

"What do you mean, 'no'?"

With a fluid swish, she turns around, the back of her almost backless pitch dress facing me. Devouring all the soft light that tries to reflect it, the dress itself seems as though it was made of the same curses in the hallway.

"This is no parley. We merely invited you to this room to discuss the terms of your ransom."

I want to let those words sink in, but they repeat so many times in my head that they stay afloat.

"A Lord you may be… one day," she snaps a gloved hand outward in exasperation while the other goes to her hip. "But today you are undoubtedly a thief. And in this land, in Siberia, do you know what we do with thieves?"

"Before you tell me what is done to thieves, shouldn't you tell me what is done to kidnappers?"

She chuckles at that before turning to face me.

"Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri, your sister's name was it not?"

There is no expression on my face. But yes, that is the name of the sister who has lately been on my mind.

She takes my silence as a confirmation. "We do not presume to know the nature of your relationship with her. However, if you had those who killed her in your grasp, would you let them go just because a Lord said he had need for them?"

I…

"The 726th Holy Grail also took our sister, the former scion of the Icecolle, away too. You see, Bram, sweetie, we are the same. So then, we know what you would do if an interloper came into your house wanting to steal your chance at revenge."

She turns and faces me with a smile as black as her dress.

The same? How dare you even consider us comparable!  
 **  
"Go-!"**

My familiar lunges towards the witch at my magical energy infused command, but Icecolle is faster. Curses erupt from her dress – it must be some sort of mystic code – but no matter, none of them are strong enough to harm my familiar. All the spells will harmlessly bounce off her scales, fur, and hide. In the next second an overwhelming amount of muscle will flatten Icecolle into a bloody stain on this hardwood floor that will be impossible to clean.

That's what should have happened, but my familiar never lands. Yes, it may have effortlessly nullified all the curses, but while mid-air something erupted from inside of its belly. Like three grenades consecutively going off, the force of the explosion throws her against a wall. That isn't the worst of it though as her entrails shoot forth, wrapping themselves around my familiar and choking the life out of her.

"Bram, sweetie, you are truly impressive. To be able to use a phantasmal species as a familiar – why, wouldn't you be a match for one or two Dead Apostles."  
 **  
"Get up! Get up, right now!"** With each word, I force more and more magical energy into my familiar. Too fast. That happened too fast so there's no way this can be the end.

Using all of its own magical energy and what I supplied, my familiars manages to upright herself. My priority should be breaking Icecolle's control of my familiar's innards and then healing the wound, but dispelling a curse is like dispelling destiny itself. Expending that much magical energy on a possibly fruitless task when I don't know what is ahead… That would not be a good idea. However, my familiar is my only offense.

"How fitting for someone who has only seen the world through the eyes of the Clock Tower. Recreating the body of a Soul Eater and then forcing it into the shape of the Devourer of the Dead, Ammit! Half of us wonders what you used for the core to bind those two concepts. The other half is truly astonished with how textbook she is."

"It's not anything a dying blood-line like yours could recreate!"

"Without a doubt. Our dying bloodline neither has the time nor resources to attempt to fuse two alien magical foundations. But then again, it wasn't all that difficult, was it? Considering Europe's fervent Egyptomania from the eighteenth century onwards, the mysteries of Ancient Egypt are rather well established in the British consciousness. For instance, there are many places in London with strong Egyptian influences. And doesn't the British Museum have a permanent Egyptian exhibit, too? But do we even need to go that far? If you want to use Egyptian magecraft you can find it in Madam Blavatsky's Theosophy, if you aren't afraid of sinking into 'Modern Magecraft,' Lord."

"You… Don't…!"

"Don't what, you hack? Lay bare your mystery? Your crowning achievement? But Bram, sweetie, it's not that tough to work out. Popular magecraft, this is all your familiar is, popular magecraft. It's equivalent to a Gandr, a Snap, or some lackadaisical fireball.

"Still, these must have been some fine ingredients to have created a replica on this level. You're nowhere near the original, but her hide's magic resistance and her soul-eating efficiency is quite superb."

No matter how much they are humiliated, a magus does not reveal another's mystery.

There is a myth that when a magus reveals himself to the public, he loses his power. The reality is the Association just sends an assassin to kill that magus. Magecraft is a power steeped in mystery. A mystery only has meaning because it is a mystery. The more people who know it, the more people who can use it, the weaker the mystery becomes and eventually it is degraded into nothing more than a method. Revealing the mystery is the equivalent of destroying that magecraft; not just for the user, but for all those who relied, rely, or will rely on that mystery. And she, so nonchalantly just…

"But you see, that was your downfall. Look around you, what do you see?"

I don't understand. It might be bigger than the standard Siberian hovels I saw in the town below but it's the same: the paneling, the door frames, the wood… the wood. But it's only a different color, isn't it? No, it's an entirely different type of wood.

"Yes, the Icecolle clan's pride and our greatest shame is immigrating from Western Europe in the Middle Ages. The witch hunts were so horrific we fled to a place where the Church had negligible influence. But we never forgot where we came from – what we lost. This fortress is a testament to that."

Broomsticks might only be mystic codes that allows for a limited form of flight. However, the modern image of a witch requires her to have a broomstick. The broomstick carries the witch during her debaucherous midnight flights; therefore, one might say the broomstick also carries the very soul of a witch. Furthermore, broomsticks are traditionally made of birch and hazel – sacred trees very much connected to the spiritual world in more than several cultures – adding strength to the concept and magic formula.

"How on earth did you ever think you could compare, sweetie? How could your flimsy familiar made from some perverse imperialistic fascination compare to centuries of persecution and suffering this family has faced?"

It… can't.

This throne, this floor, these walls, nay, this entire workshop is alive. While it may not draw breath, while it may not be able to move, the [ruby=curses and lamentations]hopes and dreams[/ruby]of all the Icecolle witches are one with the castle, one with the magus standing in front me.

If I had all the resources that Eulyphis has to offer, crushing this entire area would be a trifle. With only a half-dead familiar on the other hand….

She lifts an arm and points deep into the chasm above us. At her command, magical energy lights up the ceiling. The glow is so bright that I can finally confirm the ceiling may as well be made of drums.

"Let us be a good hostess and explain for you." She curtseys until her black dress looks like its eating the floor. "These drums are the Icecolle's shame and salvation – the shamanic drums of Siberia."

Not only revealing the mystery behind my familiar, a major mystery in this workshop? Can she be so assured of my death? Even so, no magus would ever–

"In Siberian traditions, there are two types of shamans. The 'white' shaman, and the 'black' shaman. The former are healers and diviners."

With knowledge of the world that is a mystery to his peers, the witch doctor who advises his tribe is the original and classical magus. He holds the power to see what is to come, the power to heal those who were hurt, the power to lay the dead to rest. Whether their power was from science or magecraft… No, back then it didn't matter at all, it may as well be one and the same. Either way, what they were able to do was truly Magic.

"And the 'black,' or warrior-shaman who cursed his enemies and blighted their livestock and crops," she continues.

The concept of a warrior-shaman is not foreign to that of a witch. Immigration from central Europe shouldn't be an issue. As long as the witches are regarded as "black" and curse the populace, why shouldn't they submit to the humiliation and integrate themselves into this magical foundation as black shamans.

"And the greatest tool for the black shaman are the drums above us." She waves her hand. "When played correctly they can attract vengeful sprits. We can harvest their regrets and convert them into curses or magical energy. But you mustn't think of the drum as a mystic code, sweetie."

I've heard about magecraft tools like these before. The item is everything that the user wants it to be, not just a mystic code, it is also a familiar and a spiritual guide. To call it a mere wireless speaker… still, even in this disadvantageous position I will not retract my former statement.

"One specific use for these shamanic drums is as a bow. You see, look right here." Icecolle smiles and a drum falls from the ceiling into her hands. She traces a slender, gloved finger over the curved handle of the drum. "A bow to shoot those who endanger the black shaman."

I can see all the drums on the ceiling now. The innumerable number of curses aimed at my struggling familiar and myself. It's pathetic, it's beyond pathetic.

"And now that we've explained that to you, do you want to hear how we did your familiar in?"

There's no need to explain that. My familiar's hide may be very resilient to magecraft but her insides are not. The spirits that she ate were filled with grudges. I'm the successor of the [ruby=Eulyphis]Department of Spiritual Evocation[/ruby], I know and will admit that much. If these drums are able to amplify one's voice, then they should be able to amplify curses as well. No, perhaps their original purpose was to amplify curses – the wireless speaker function is just a party trick. After all, the only way to hide a mystery is to obfuscate the observer into believing that it is a different mystery entirely. A phenomenon created in order to hide another phenomenon only draws attention to itself.

Hook, line, and sinker.

I laugh and raise my hands. "Very good show for a third-rate. I give up. I will grant you whatever you wish."

She turns her head to face me – her eyes as cold as her namesake.

The atmosphere freezes just for an instant, but when it thaws, a never-ending barrage of curses rips my familiar apart. She is no longer recognizable, just a mess of scaled and furry flesh. But the thought of all the time I wasted making her never crosses my mind because-

"Bram, sweetie, do you honestly believe we would let you leave this workshop?"

Move. Get out. Get out now. You can throw your pride away for all you care, you just need to get out this instant because this woman is dangerous.

Screaming, I sprint to a window and attempt to throw myself into it, but a curse slices one of the tendons in my leg. I can't move it anymore. No matter much I try, I can't move it anymore and the pain is so intense, just so intense that I don't think I can generate any magical energy.

Brought down low, I can only crawl.

Am I going to die? No, that shouldn't be a question. Lately, my sister has been on my mind. She died fighting a magical war in a backwater country and I think a little part of me thought that was a slightly pathetic death. How does having the third-rate successor of a third-rate family curse you to death compare to that?

"There's no use moving. Your familiar can't help you." With that warning, Icecolle starts slowly walking towards me. At this rate, she's going to get to me before I reach my familiar. Wait, can I still call her my familiar when she is nothing more than a bloody mess on this hardwood floor?

I'm scared and I want to scream. I want to scream so much, but it hurts. That's why all I can do is try my best. If I die, at least I will die with my work. At least there is a modicum of dignity as a magus in that. Lately, my sister has been on my mind so I can't help wondering if this is also what she believed.

That this world is too unfair.

That this world should have a safety net for people like us. After all, we are the ones who are destined for greatness, so then isn't it the world's loss as well?

There. Reaching into my familiar, I grasp what I was looking for tightly in my left hand and use my right as a lever to roll my body over to face the figure looming over me.

Lately, my sister has been on my mind, so I can't help comparing them.

They look nothing alike. Icecolle's slightly tired and lined face looks terribly normal and doesn't fit the type of dress she is wearing. It's almost as if someone tried to force it onto her. But I say that with an unsteady voice as I look into her to frozen blue eyes. With that stench of death and oppressive atmosphere, she truly is a curse incarnate.

Her eyes twitch.

"Sto-"

But as blood blossoms from my right arm flying off into the darkness, my gut-wrenching screams drowns out any words I could have mustered.


	2. 2

**2/**

Lately, my sister has been on my mind.

More specifically, I've been thinking about the time my father told us that my sister was to be married. His office was always dank with the aging grimoires and the cursed objects that were so carefully mounted on the wall or placed around the desk that it made me uneasy. However, the most oppressive thing in the room was the man himself.

"You are now betrothed to the El-Melloi Lord, Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi," he told her.

How drearily normal; what would be incredible is if he talked to us in a different manner.

I, of course, was delighted. Kayneth was a great man and I considered our department lucky to have him as a lecturer. And now this eminent man who was prophesied to unite all the factions of the Clock Tower was to be my very own brother-in-law?

However, that would never to come to pass. Kayneth decided to participate in a ritual known as a sub-category Holy Grail War to prove his martial prowess and took my sister with him. It is in fighting this war that they both perished. It was rumored for a while that my brother's very own disciple, the current El-Melloi II, killed him. I know that deep-wrinkled, stomach-ache withholding man well enough to declare it impossible.

As for why this memory in particular, I would have to say it is because no matter how many times I replay it, I can't see the expression on my sister's face. I can't remember how she felt the moment she realized she would be marrying this man. It might not matter because our father's word is absolute in our family; however, after losing her, I feel like it is something that I shouldn't forget.

People die all the time and magi are no exception. To a magus, a death is nothing special and it might even be better for me as a magus to forget everything about her. But for some reason, being unable to recall her expression at that time annoys me. Actually, I know the reason.

For those of us who are left behind, perhaps this is all we have.

I am sure that she is the same, the one whose sister was killed in a variation of the same magical war. What would she think if she found out that I was the one who supplied the catalysts to the magi who killed her sister? But then again, she already killed me, so I guess that makes us even.

Wait, if she already killed me then why does my right arm hurt so much?

The first thing I felt when I realized that I was still alive was my loss.

I have already lost many things, but never a part of myself. Instinctively, I curled up and wrapped my arms around my knees.

And that was when I truly understood I no longer had my right arm.

"Get up," a gruff voice orders me.

Everything is hazy. I must have been crying while I was asleep. It doesn't matter though since the first thing my eyes focus on is that blond mustache of his.

"I've seen injuries much worse than yours. For god's sake, a missing arm is nothing compared to an imbecile recovering from a pierced heart."

I glare at him.

He continues nonchalantly. It seems he must be used to being glared at, "It seems your rescue plan went awry didn't it, Lord Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri?"

"I am not a Lord yet; however, if we were in the Clock Tower that would be the appropriate way to address me yes. Here, Bram is fine, Mr. Musik."

Gordes Musik Yggdmillennia. Once, the Musik family were regarded as first-class alchemists. When their bloodline started deteriorating, they were absorbed into the Yggdmillennia like the Icecolle and no one paid any more attention to the family under the Eight-Forked Tongue. However, a year ago, the Yggdmillennia attempted to secede from the Association with the 726th Holy Grail. Fourteen Heroic Spirits were summoned as Servants to do battle – seven on each side – in the greatest Grail War seen thus far. One of the only survivors of that war, dubbed the Great Grail War, was this man. This man who was the central reason for the assault on the Icecolle fortress.

"So, Bram, I know why _they_ came, but did you drag your idiot self just to be captured?"

After thrusting the contents of my left hand into the pillow, I throw the sheets of the lacking bed to one side. From the lingering damp on everything and the bars at the foot of the bed, we must be in the fortress's dungeon then. However, I can't feel a mystic lock around the area, so then if I am able to….

"Don't even try that, you idiot." Mr. Musik narrows an eye and glares at me. "Just sit there and tell me why you're here."

My right shoulder feels exactly the same as it always does, but if I move my hand further down I have to ask myself… was this man truly worth that arm?

"My family suffered some slight humiliation last year."

Mr. Musik nods. I'm reluctant to admit it, but as the next Lord of Eulyphis, the Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri family were the ones who supplied catalysts for the Association-affiliated Masters in the Great Grail War. Masters who were compromised before their Servants aligned themselves with a rogue element in the Assembly of the Eight Sacrament ran amok.

Mr. Musik is the man who collected most of the catalysts for the Yggdmillennia side. My family has made its mark as being the greatest supplier of catalysts. We even have relics from the Age of Gods in our storehouses. Therefore, it would be natural for us to at least approach the man who amassed his own horde of catalysts from under our very noses.

"You saw this as the best opportunity to recruit me." Mr. Musik pauses for a second, "No, you snakes are more conniving than that. You blackmailed my family, didn't you?"

"Of course not! We only requested that for your safe return, your family would be contracted under our own."

"That's blackmail."

It's not blackmail. That's how we normally negotiate in the Clock Tower. I was certain a magus of your stature would understand that. But it doesn't seem like he does since he is still looking into my unflinching eye as if he can continue to pretend I blackmailed his family.

Without any warning, he sighs, breaking any tension. "Blackmail or not, your idiotic, blackmailing self is stuck here with me."

"Stuck? I'm sure my family will contract freelancers to break us out."

There is no doubt that Icecolle will send my arm to my family with a ransom note detailing whatever demands she may have. My family will send an execution squad and within a few days this castle will be nothing more than diamond dust.

After losing their spare, there is no way my family will risk my life.

"Then, why on earth did you come here in the first place?" Mr. Musik asks.

"I didn't come alone," I reply. "There were fifteen hunters who came with me. They were here to rescue you; something about being contracted out to the El-Melloi clan."

Mr. Musik just looks at me, swallows, and says. "I understand that. I'm asking why _you_ came."

It's an understatement to call this fortress a safe place since any missed step might mean death. Mr. Musik definitely isn't someone who I would ever risk my life for and I have never been the one for adventure – not since my sister died. So, then what drew me away from the meaningful political mechanisms of London to this castle in the middle of Siberia?

I might have not been sure, but before I knew it, I was on a plane with fifteen other magi who are no longer here. I think that's the important part.

"There are only two times when a magus uses magecraft," I start. "Ascending to the next level and when fighting against another magus."

"Yes, we're all bark and no bite. The only time that a magus will ever choose to fight…" Mr. Musik pauses, realizes something, and says with his barbs in full force, "You absolutely disgust me."

W-What?

"You're an idiot Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri. So narcissistically fixated on what you want to see, you didn't realize there's a fucking civil war going on here."

Words that shock rather than hurt even if they're words that don't make any sense at all.

"No one is leaving London to save you," Mr. Musik continues. "No one is coming save me either. They can't without stirring up an even bigger shit-show. Seriously, why did you even come in the first place? I would understand if you had a proper reason, but that reason is as dumb as challenging a magus in her workshop."

"Gordes Musik Yggdmillennia, you were kidnapped because of your strategic value to the remaining Yggdmillennia. As the only family within that clan who was able to produce homunculi, you naturally control them. The Icecolle family, your former collaborators, wanted that military force and proceeded to take you."

I have only seen the eyes he is giving me once before in my life. I was young then and my sister was even younger. At the very end, there were only three people in that room, me, the person charged with protecting me, and the person charged with killing me. I, of course, did not die. Instead, as the assassin lay dying, he looked at me with eyes that Mr. Musik is currently giving me.

Hate isn't appropriate and there was no malice his eyes. Rather, the assassin disapproved of my entire existence, as if I wasn't worthy of this life. Not that this life was better than me in any way, but my very existence broke a natural law. That this was not the way the world was supposed to be.

The man who died that day gave me a present one year before. I thanked him as "uncle."

"You couldn't be any more wrong. Shut up before I hit you."

I shut up.

He gets up from his chair, walks to the lab bench, and fiddles around with his alchemy set. I hadn't noticed it when I woke up but this cell is more like an alchemy workshop. A witch's den should smell like blood and herbs. However, it smells like chemicals here; the sanitary smell that one would expect from hospitals. Various reagents litter a lab-bench top and the most striking of them are the multiple volumetric flasks filled with a crimson liquid. Large pieces of equipment like tanks filled with green liquid, a furnace, and a large distiller litter the gigantic dungeon cell. If the bars weren't here, I think I'd actually somewhat feel at home.

Mr. Musik mumbles something about this being what you get when you let your wife deal with idiots who think they're already Lords.

I'm not sure what to think of Mr. Musik. He certainly isn't as great as he was described. He might have the dominating, portly stature. But that is slightly more comical than oppressive. As for who he is, he seems to me like a failure of a magus. He is too temperamental about things that other magi would not even flinch at. Almost like these notions offend his sense of self or aesthetics. I wonder why that is.

Being from a formerly notably noble family, I'm sure Mr. Musik has had "duty" to the family's legacy hammered into him. Watching him now, it's almost like he has rejected the parts he didn't like while accepting what was convenient. Does that mean he is strong or that he is weak?

"Einskaya, Icecolle, and Frain."

Those three family names didn't come from my mouth.

"Those three houses were hurt the most during the Great Grail War. The Frain and Icecolle lost their only heirs. The Einskaya lost everything."

A report filed after the Great Grail War noted not only was the famed Zugzwang unit decimated in the Far East but they also lost their Magic Crest. As for the other two, the leaders of the Frain families are still young and have enough time to produce another heir. As for the Icecolle family… I don't think I need to mention the Icecolle family.

But I see what he is trying to say. Losing this much under the name of Yggdmillennia, these families wish to leave the collective while trying to scrounge up anything to make up for what they lost.

Mr Musik turns around to face me, "They have found a home amongst the minor houses of the Clock Tower."

The minor houses. Those who have lost, are on the verge of losing, or just merely began. The houses that scramble and scour for any scraps. To preserve and push magecraft forward, the Association must regard these minor houses as "important." The greatest example may as well have been Darnic Prestone Yggdmillennia being given the honorary title of "Grand." I am not sure what would have happened if the sub-category Holy Grail Wars never occurred; however, there currently aren't many living magi.

"With the support of the minor houses in the Clock Tower, those three families are pressuring us – the three families who believe staying together is better, Forvedge, Musik, Sagara. We are currently under the care of the El-Melloi." He shrugs at the last part, before adding how the current head of the Yggdmillennia is part of the El-Melloi classroom.

I remember hearing about that particular New Age.

Either way this isn't just an internal Yggdmillennia issue. In Clock Tower terms, they're being used as pawns in a proxy war between two much more important sides. The Lords of the Clock Tower who the El-Melloi are ironically, adorably representing and the minor houses of the Clock Tower. How idiotic.

But that still doesn't explain why the Icecolle kidnapped Mr. Musik.

Shaking my head, all I can do is look at my stump over the sterile gown I was given. It doesn't hurt now, it doesn't even itch, there is only a medically induced numbness I can assume was Mr. Musik's fault.

Fault. Mr. Musik's fault. Just like how it was his fault that I came here in the first place, Icecolle placed the blame of her sister's death on Mr. Musik. I ponder that for a few moments while supporting my face with the palm that is still there.

Without a doubt, Icecolle is a victim. I'm not sure who or what she is a victim to, but her reason for lashing out and kidnapping Mr. Musik is utterly justified. I can say that because lately my mind has been on my sister.

What did Icecolle say in that accursed throne room?  
 _  
"If you had those who killed her in your grasp, would you let them go just because a Lord said he had need for them?"_

No, I wouldn't. Of course, I wouldn't. A thousand times, I wouldn't. No matter what relationship I had with my sister, no matter what my sister meant to me, at the end of the day she was my sister. But I have no idea what my sister might want of me. Either way, it's natural for Icecolle to want to kill Mr. Musik for the sake of the sister she lost.

Right, it's obviously why Icecolle would want to kill Mr. Musik.

"But then why hasn't she killed you yet?"

It doesn't seem like he has any intention of answering my question. "I'm sure you've heard of the expression that when you are cursing someone you may as well dig two holes?"

If was to use the traditional magecraft definition, a curse is merely a spell that changes someone's fate. For example, when Gandr, a common Northern European Runic curse, hits a person, their physical condition deteriorates – they basically become sick. However, if Gandr was used on a rock, it would have no effect as a rock cannot become sick. Of course, if you overload the curse with enough magical energy, it can cause physical damage. That is how Icecolle ripped my familiar into shreds with curses.

"The Icecolle cursed too many people until it became harder and harder to have children. The former scion, Celenike was the first child born in that generation." Mr. Musik continues.

And she died in the Great Holy Grail War. If Celenike Icecolle Yggdmillennia was truly the last of the Icecolle, then who is this magus claiming to be her sister?

"If she's a fake, then why would she want to keep you as a hostage?"

He doesn't answer for a moment. He must be too busy with whatever alchemical reagents he is playing with until we both hear the sound of footsteps from other side of the cell.

"Why don't you ask the person herself?"

Still in that dress as jet black as a city night sky and with eyes as cold as her namesake, the mastermind smiles at me.


	3. 3

**3/**

"Is this truly the first time you've ever woven, sweetie?"

I nod and concentrate on the bark in my fingers. Even though it is cold, smooth, and pliable, using one hand to weave a good basket is impossible.

"We take the inner bark from the trees and slice them into strips. It's these strips that we bend and weave into a basket or a pair of shoes. The most incredible thing is that after some time, these strips harden. It's quite a common technique around the world; the North Americas, China, and our Scandinavian countries."

A pleasant conversation between two friends after a cup of afternoon tea. She doesn't sound like a person who just cut off my arm and then held me hostage at all.

"This bark, it's birch, though isn't it? I'm starting to see a common motif."

She nods vigorously, "Why, of course. Ours is a magical system which links the broom, the very symbol of a witch to the world tree of Siberia."

In many cultures the birch is seen as a sacred tree. In Celtic traditions, birch trees were an indicator of Tir na Nog, the land of the young. In Siberia, if I recall my [ruby=Solonea] Individual Foundations[/ruby] classes, the birch tree was seen as a guide post either to the land of the dead or the land of gods. These baskets we're weaving are not just some playful afternoon tea activity; we are filling them with mystery. Eventually they'll be used as traps or vessels for stray spirits.

"Just like we weave these baskets, the Icecolle weave our curses one thread at a time, making sure each sacrifice renders the basket as tight as possible."

Previously, I talked about the standard magecraft definition of a curse. However, there are different ways to look at that. For instance, it might easier to think of a curse as a set of conditions that, when triggered, will cause an effect.

"Each weave is made as tightly as possible so nothing can fall between the gaps of the weave. If nothing can fall between those gaps, the basket won't loosen and fall apart. Whatever comes into contact with the basket must then stay inside. Is that the analogy you were trying to make?"

She smiles, happy to know that I am not a complete idiot, before dropping the half-finished basket she had in her hands on the table.

"Do you know what the Icecolle name means, then?"

I shake my head. I have a good guess, but I don't want to be right.

"To deal with our sacrifices with ice-cold eyes."

Ahhhh, the same solemnness that some people take when hunting and cooking meat. It seems I was completely off. For each thread of the curse, there needs to be a sacrifice, something dying painfully and in agony. Even to a magus, watching something like that is unpleasant. For that reason, we create shields within our minds to distance ourselves for those emotions. But that iron-clad will isn't to protect oneself from the self-hatred and remorse from killing. The greatest fear for all practitioners of black magic is one day falling in love with that agony and pain – to drown in one's magecraft and die. So, the name, Icecolle, is a reminder to never degenerate to such baseness.

"But Bram, sweetie, if we are to speak of sacrifices, then we have to speak of the sub-category Holy Grail Wars. What is your opinion of them?"

"A thaumaturgical tool, nothing else. A mere magical energy furnace for those who dream of reaching the Swirl of Origin, yet lack the patience, pedigree and resources."

She laughs at the answer.

"We didn't ask you what the sub-category Holy Grail Wars are. We asked your opinion of them," she purses her lips for a moment before continuing. "We are keeping you because we think you and us are the same. We both lost our sisters to these wars. Yours to a sub-category war, and ours in the Great Holy Grail War."

"But what does that have to do with holding me here?"

"Nothing at all," she purrs. "Those hunters and you were the ones who came and attacked us. We were only acting in self-defense; would you not agree?"

"You were holding a man against his will." My retort comes out weaker than I wanted it to sound.

"Yes, but does that make it any less of a self-defensive act?" With that, she nods her head, acknowledging my missing arm. "Either way, Lord or not, you have paid the price for trespassing and attacking our land, let us not speak of that anymore."

I drop my not-even-quarter-finished basket onto the table. Naturally, all the weaves come apart and I am left with the strips of bark I began with. Smirking self-derisively, I pick up the china teacup and take a sip of the tea.

"It's a complex flavor, isn't it?" Icecolle comments. I don't understand how she was able to draw that line out of my head. It must be something she says to everyone she serves this tea to for the first time.

It doesn't have the bite of a fine black tea; instead I feel as though I'm transported to a different location. To those familiar with the flavor or that location, it might be easier to place, but as for myself…

"Some thyme flowers, melias, currant, and Sagaan Dali, doesn't it taste like the taiga itself?"

So then even a land as harsh as Siberia can give birth to beautiful things. There are only so many things that keep one going, especially after losing one's home. But then again, maybe all it takes for a family, a culture to keep surviving is something as mundanely miraculous as tea.

Or maybe I'm just becoming too sentimental after losing this arm.

"At least, that's what the former owner of this body always said to her customers."

The moment I walked into this room, I could feel it. The magical energy radiating off this woman wasn't anything human. If we're purely talking about quantity, it doesn't feel greater than the dregs that radiate off a first-class magus. Instead it was the malice, the dripping spite that was coming off the woman. It almost felt as though….

"I want to tell you about her Bram, sweetie, so you might better understand how alike we are." She cuts my thought off with that. "When our sister died, the Icecolle magi gave up; they gave up and summoned us. Of course, all Icecolle magecraft requires a sacrifice, a price. The entire family died. But you see, they had already given up so it wasn't that high of a price to pay as magi. With that, we were summoned and given the shell of one of the crones."

What is she talking about?

"We weren't satisfied with such a body. The crone was compatible and had sufficient magic circuits, but her body was rotting too quickly. With the resources of our allies, we searched and searched for someone younger but just as compatible. And guess what, there was a distant relative of the Icecolle living in the town right below the castle. She was even the hostess for a local inn!"

There's no need to explain what happened next. I have no sympathy for the woman who had her body taken over. At least, I wouldn't have if I still believed Icecolle was a magus. To a magus, the advancement of his goal is everything. It doesn't matter if an entire town must be massacred as long as it is done secretly, effectively, and the pay-off was worth the lives that were taken. For the sake of reaching the Swirl of Origin, we must all make sacrifices. But this woman, if I can still call her a woman, isn't a magus. I have no idea what she is at all, but as a magus, as someone who is prepared to take all the responsibility for ruining the lives of others, I can't forgive her. Not for taking a woman's life. But taking it without understanding all that comes that action.

"But the more hilarious thing was that the woman's husband and son came up in some misguided attempt to obtain revenge. They knew that she was dead, yet they came up. They knew that they were powerless, yet they came up anyway. And this is what we want to discuss with you sweetie."

That inhuman face, those inhuman eyes. I can see them now.

"When we were summoned into this world, we only had one purpose, to obtain revenge for our sister, and we did everything in our power to make it happen. When we saw those fools attempting to avenge a wife and a mother they knew would never return, we couldn't help thinking: 'We're in the right, aren't we?'

"After we possessed the crone, after we possessed that hostess, we came to understand love, we came to understand rage. It was no longer a mechanical purpose that drove us, but a feeling. We are sure you understand Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri. Your sister died in a Holy Grail War. She is gone, nothing more than a memory. That pain, that loss, isn't fair. We can blame the person herself for selfishly dying, but isn't it also the fault of all those who attacked them, who succeeded in killing her?

"Bram, sweetie, you are the next Lord of Eulyphis, so you should know more than anyone about the nature of vengeful spirits, evil spirits. We don't wish for those we love to turn into such raving beasts trapped on this plane, saying the same thing over and over again. Then to honor those who died. To honor those we love. Shouldn't we do everything we can to lay them to rest?"

"I…"

I can't argue with her because I want to believe in her words, no, I actually do believe in her words – as a magus as well as a brother. Right, we are the ones they left behind in the world, so we have to do our best for the people we love who are no longer here.

This is… the correct way to live. The correct way to deal with our losses.

I want to tell her that. I honestly do, but there's just one part of me that can't agree. Maybe it's because lately, my mind has been on my sister, but there's something wrong with what she said. Still, I can't answer because I don't have the answers. Instead, "What are you going to do with Mr. Musik then? If you truly believe what you say why is he not dead?"

The first question becomes the last.

"For all the pain Mr. Musik has caused us, he is a cooperative and compliant hostage. There is no reason to kill him, yet."

If there's no reason to take her revenge, yet. Then it must mean Mr. Musik is useful to her. After those words leave my mouth,

"I'm sure you've heard of Mr. Musik's specialty, he coins homunculi."

"But if you wanted homunculi, you could have gone to any other…."

I finally understand. It's incredibly stupid, but I see. She doesn't want a homunculus, she wants a homunculus body. And she doesn't just want one of those defective homunculi that will die in three or so years, she wants a bona-fide child of nature. Other than the reclusive Einzbern family, the only person who can make homunculi even close to that is Gordes Musik Yggdmillenia.

She sips her tea, watching me putting the pieces together.

"We don't want much. Not much at all. But there's something that you're missing sweetie. What Gordes will make for us isn't a child of nature, but the very vessel for a wish-granter." 


	4. 4

**4/**

Lately my mind has been on my sister.

Icecolle said that we might be able to blame the person herself for selfishly dying but I can't even do that.

Winter in London is white. The streets are paved with snow, and usually it's the seasons of comings, rather than going. It's with this false consumerist cheer serving as our backdrop that I said goodbye to my sister and her fiancée.

There wasn't much emotion in my chest that time. There was no apprehension, I was not worried about the future, and there was no way I could imagine they would never come back. Never doubting for a moment, I passed Kayneth the wooden box with his replacement catalyst inside.

The previous catalyst had been stolen by an idiot student of his so it was natural that he would turn to the Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri for a replacement.

"In this box are the remnants of a fence with seven doorways that once stood in a forest near Athlone. With this, you will summon the Saber-class Servant you seek."

Patting me on the shoulder, Kayneth regaled me about how great of a brother-in-law I would be and promised when he came back he would tell me all about the great battles he conquered in the largest sub-category Holy Grail War held thus far.

I have been waiting ten years to hear his stories. I have been waiting ten years to see her face once more.

It was difficult to see it back then, with her being bundled up in furs and a scarf covering the bottom half of her face. But as I was wishing my sister, my former spare, goodbye and a safe trip, I'm not sure I felt much at all.

If I didn't feel much, if I didn't put much importance in that farewell, wholeheartedly believing that in two weeks they would return, then what are the chances of me even remembering what her face was at the time?

Was she happy, ready to go into battle with the man she loved and would marry?

Was she scared, hopelessly depressed about the possibility of being drawn into battle?

And that's why I can't blame my sister for dying. I might be able to blame Kayneth for bringing her, but who could blame such an illustrious and great man in the first place?

Without knowing who to blame, I've spent this decade pondering about everything I've lost; even if, at the time, I took everything I had for granted.

How truly easy it must be to punish those you believe did wrong and in doing so, do right, while laying those you love to rest. It doesn't even matter if Icecolle isn't human because, and I don't want to admit this, that feeling, that emotion, is more human than anything that I have decided on in these ten years.

We are both victims.

We are the ones who were left behind because of the selfish nature of a magical war.

But even so, it's not like we had everything taken away from us; this is just one part of who we are. Yet, why does it feel as though this is now the core of my being?

Maybe that's why Icecolle took my arm away from me, so I could finally understand what was lost and what can never be replaced. Even if I somehow remember the sort of face my sister made when she left for that Holy Grail War, I'll never see her again.

This is difficult, but not difficult in the way that magic formulas or rituals are difficult. The problem is difficult because I don't think there's a right answer. It's not like I know that what I did was correct because some phenomenon was correctly replicated. Rather, the question is whether or not I can live with myself after what I've chosen.

How do we, those who were left behind, move forward?

When I wake up, I find a plate of food next to the bed – what seems to be a thick yogurt sweetened with honey, a slice of black bread, and the same pot of the tea that Icecolle made me when we talked last afternoon. The smell woke my stomach so I break off a corner of bread, dip it into the yogurt and pop it into my mouth.

"It's good, isn't it?" Mr. Musik is at the laboratory bench-top. "Sour cream mixed with cottage cheese, sounds absolutely disgusting like most of the foods this culture has to offer, but it grows on you after a while." Like the insolence of a certain homunculus, he adds, mumbling under his breath.

When our afternoon tea concluded, Icecolle escorted me back to the cell, where I promptly flopped into the lumpy bed without saying a word to my cellmate. I don't think my cellmate really cared.

Still, as I absentmindedly ruminate on this hard bread, I can't help but think how unsafe it is to be eating in this alchemical workshop. In the Clock Tower, they do teach us not to eat while performing magecraft unless that happens to be one's switch or the magecraft is the food itself. Either way, I digress.

"Mr. Musik, what was Icecolle talking about when she said she wanted you to create a vessel for a wish-granter for her? Does this have to do with the Great Holy Grail War?"

Mr. Musik snorts, making a crude remark about Icecolle.

"It's something as idiotic as you are," he says, moving to the old-fashioned furnace. "You know that my family once almost reached the level the Einzbern were at. We had a long way to go, but at the very least, we were able to see their haughty backs." Mr. Musik lightly scoffs at himself.

All magi look back into the past, that's what separates magecraft from science. But it seems like Mr. Musik is saying those times were when his family was the most useless or maybe those times mean less to him now than they once did.

"The Einzbern are able to make Holy Grails and put them in homunculi, or rather, make a homunculus as a Holy Grail," he continues.

If you give the Holy Grail a personality, the Holy Grail can not only manage itself, but also choose who should wield it. Essentially, the Einzbern are able to cheat. But why are we talking so much about the Einzbern if the person Icecolle kidnapped was Mr. Musik?

"The Einzbern once gifted the Musik family a portion of their magecraft and with that I was able to create the homunculi we used for the Great Holy Grail War. During that conflict, there was one function that I was able to realize that Darnic didn't want in the homunculi. Either way, implementing it into every single one of those brats would have taken too much time and didn't have much of a use. What was left out was the ability for the homunculi to fully function as vessels."

I see. I'm not an alchemist, but at the very least I understand the meaning behind those words.

"The reason why the Einzbern created homunculi that served as vessels is when the Servants were defeated, their spiritual cores could be collected and stored there, then."

A homunculus is an artificial life-form made from alchemy. However, the original purpose of creating a homunculus is creating magic circuits which are housed in a body compared to a magus who has a body which houses magic circuits. Furthermore, the zenith of homunculi are those called children of nature, basically, artificial nature spirits. These children of nature are generally complete the moment they are born and can survive on the breath of the planet alone. Needless to say, homunculi are riddled with defects due to their artificial nature. These go from a missing limb or mental disabilities to stunted growth or a very limited lifespan. No matter how much magical energy they can produce, they are a weaker species than humans. However, there is one advantage to this, a homunculus' artificial soul is young and very malleable, and if Mr. Musik is correct and he is able to create homunculi who are conceptually "vessels…."

"Mr. Musik, what is this new Icecolle head?"

"How on earth should I know? Probably a group of evil spirits or something like that." He throws his arms up in exasperation. "I can tell you that close to half a year after Celenike died, the three families who wanted to leave the Yggdmillennia debuted this new head."

I look at Mr. Musik's back more intensely. He knows, but he just doesn't want to tell me. I don't know who or what he's trying to protect. But we are never going to get out of here if he's going to be like that.

If I had to make a guess from our former battle and from everything that I have heard, I would say that Icecolle is a curse, the curse of the Icecolle so to speak. The moment this "Celenike" person died, there was nothing but ruin waiting for the family, so those who were left sacrificed themselves to change the destiny of the family. But a curse can never save anything, it can never give birth to something new. The remnants of the Icecolle had to know this, so then maybe what they wished for wasn't the further prosperity of the family. Maybe they just called it a day and decided to curse those who drove them to such a desperate situation.

In their desperation and dying moments, the Icecolle made a wish, but it was a distorted wish, a curse. And what place suits a distorted wish better than a wish-granting vessel?

"So then, Mr. Musik, do you want to escape?"

He sharply turns around, "Of course I do. What sort of question is that?"

"So then, Mr. Musik, why are you cooperating with her?"

If Icecolle wants Mr. Musik to create a homunculus body for her, there's no way she could put a mystic lock on this place. After all, Mr. Musik has to be able to use alchemy. At the same time, while we might not be able to escape via brute force, there is an infinite number of tricks that we could use. The question is why hasn't Mr. Musik tried? Icecolle even said that he was cooperating.

Usually, Mr. Musik looks slightly disgruntled at everything around us. However, right now, his face is at its most emotionless. He leaves the furnace, sits on his bed, and turns to face me.

"That's the question."

It seems that Mr. Musik also can't help but feel responsible. From what I've seen of him, he's an abrasive and awkward man who doesn't care about anything other than himself and his magecraft. In short, he is the perfect magus. That's obvious though; after all, only the greatest of magi could have survived the Great Holy Grail War.

"Bram," he looks at me like one would look in a mirror. "I'm not that great of a person and I'm not that great as a magus. Neither are you.

"I'm no more than an idiot who was given the best card possible but never believed in the person behind the card. It might be okay if that card was someone I alone possessed and only I was brought to ruin because of my mistake, but that wasn't the case. It was a card that the entire clan shared and it was because of my mistake that we lost it before the war even started.

"It was my fault, but it wasn't only my fault. In that war, everyone made mistakes and the Ygddmillennia were blind-sighted by so many things. To make matters even more pathetic, the kid who saved us became a dragon who stole hope from humanity."

He laughs at that last remark before continuing.

"But, as a bad-mouthed and coarse homunculus once said to me, 'As an alchemist, you are… not that bad.' She's dead now, but as terrible as that woman was, those words saved me when I hit rock bottom," he says so without any emotion, but I can see a faint smile behind those words.

"Bram, I know that you lost a sister in a sub-category Holy Grail War, so I think you understand this better than most people do. What we lost and the situation that we were in doesn't make us special. What I went through is simply a part of life. Hah, it might be different for that fool and his sister since they were in the thick of it, but me? My war was over before I knew it and I became nothing more than an observer. Life is short but at the same time life is extremely long. The things that you believe that define you now… in ten, twenty, fifty years, their brilliance and luster will fade until they are nothing but faint dreams. Even so, there was meaning to those things. It's because of how they sparkled that I am here today."

Mr. Musik, I don't think I understand that because I haven't been able to let my sister go. In fact, I can't even touch something related to a sub-category Holy Grail War without thinking about what may have happened.  
"What does this have to do with Icecolle though?"

"Celenike was not a good person. You could say she was a monster. However, she was still family who died because of our mistakes. When I was taken, I immediately thought to escape, just like you said. But this new head is simply too thick, just like you. Argh, it seriously annoys me thinking about it."

That's the Mr. Musik I know. Arrogant and problematic to the core. The reason why he's staying here can't be because of compassion or any emotion remotely close to empathy. He saw someone incompetently living their life and found it insulting to his sensibilities – like a veteran scolding his junior. It makes me slightly happy that there are magi like this.

That must be the reason why I sought out Mr. Musik. Feeling lost for ten years, never finding the courage, the humility to ask for help, I forced myself into a situation where I could at least watch someone who I believed went through the same thing I did yet came out stronger. With that being said, I'll admit that I have totally failed. Bram Nuada-Re Sophi-Ri can never compare to Gordes Musik Yggdmillenia, no matter our pedigree, no matter our magic circuits.

Valuables things were lost, but at the same time there were precious things that were obtained. I will mourn those things, I will learn from them, but no matter what I will face the uncertain future aiming for a star that I know I will never reach.

Frankly, I'm jealous. I wish I could live like that. I wish I had people around me who could provoke me, guide me to live like that. Instead, lately, my mind has just been on my sister.

And that's why Icecolle wants me to acknowledge her. Because honestly, I want Icecolle to acknowledge me as well. I know that she isn't human, but that makes it even more inviting. To have some objective proof that it's okay for me to feel this pain, that it's okay to hurt others because of my pain is more than comforting.

But I can't help thinking that's she's wrong. That she's forgetting something.

"Mr. Musik," I look him straight in the eyes, "Can you help me?"

"What do you want me to help you with?"

"-"

He scoffs, "Of course I can you idiot. All you ever had to do was ask for crying out loud!" He looks at my feather pillow. "Now take the relic out of that pillow case. Why do you think I turned on the furnace?"

Ha?

"You might be an idiot, but just because we share a cell, don't assume for a second that I am too. This is going to take a few days, but I said I was going to help you, didn't I? What you have to worry about is what spirit you're going to evoke into it."

"Don't worry Mr. Musik, I already know what spirit I'm going to use for that."

But the moment I say that, I look down at the clothes I was supplied and make a second innocent request.

"Can you help me put on my suit as well?"

"Hell no. One arm or not, put on your own trousers, you cheeky brat."

And for the first time in as long as I can remember, I smile.

Let's get to work, shall we?


	5. 5

**5/  
**  
Malignant Information.

In the material world, it is a transient curse that disappears the moment the rumors do. There was a Dead Apostle who once who tried to reach a mystery known as The Sixth or Program Number 6. Unable to reach it in his lifetime, his spiritrons were dispersed into the The Sixth. It is said that every few decades, this Dead Apostle reappears in closed communities, using his Reality Marble to collect malignant information and transforming himself into what is feared the most, annihilating the entire town. Named after the first place he materialized in and for using the image of Vlad the Impaler as his foundation, he is known as The Night of Wallachia. I am not trying to say that Icecolle is a version of The Night of Wallachia; after all, TATARI disappears after one night of theatre. Instead, one might say she is something even more sinister.

"Before she died, Celenike was working on a way to curse people through what I believe they call the internet, a quantum world."

When we had finished casting the casing, Mr. Musik revealed what we were dealing with –Celenike Icecolle Yggdmillennia's greatest creation, the remnant of her three-decade epic.

In a quantum world like the internet that has its foundation in data and information, malignant information is inevitably stored and locked away as "useless data." I don't dabble in such degenerate behavior as "surfing the web," but all the vitriol, all the terrible puns, and all the cartoon reaction images, don't just fade away. Instead, they fester and pile up until they turn into an all-consuming tidal wave of mud – the cast-away, abominable, history of humanity's sins. However, the core of malignant information is nothing more than hollow demagoguery, spreading for the sake of spreading, just like videos of kittens.

Yet, even if it's called "useless data," this travesty still has an incredibly high spiritron energy value. Therefore, is it not the perfect medium for sending curses across the internet? Chain e-mails, internet urban myths, need not apply; after all, they are products of children playing games, wholeheartedly believing in the power of anonymity or wishing to be part of something greater.

It is through the accumulation of malignant information that people who are hurt in turn hurt others. We construct a web of lies, a hollow web of curses that will continuously circulate in the "circle-jerking" closed online communities that are now too commonplace in the quantum world we constructed. The victims become the assailants and the cycle continues; all the while, the amount of mud slowly but surely increases, eroding more and more of reality.

You were born in that hell.

An aggregate of all the mud, all the filth that Celenike had spread, you are the family tugging back every cursed thread Celenike had woven into the internet and in sacrificing themselves, the family was able to pull you out and pour you into a compatible human goblet.

The greatest magecraft the Icecolle have been capable of.

The only magecraft the Icecolle have been capable of.

For the sake of your creator, for the sake of the person you call sister, you seek a never-ending vengeance. In all honesty, it's quite beautiful to go that far for someone you love. No matter how inhuman you are, that emotion alone is something fundamentally human. Therefore, there can only be one name for you. After all, you perfectly personify the tribulations as well as the desecration that this family of witches has endured and performed.  
You are the actualization of the cycle of victim and assailant, for curses can only breed more curses.

Drowning that a sea of curses, yet never averting those ice-cold eyes, your name can only be Icecolle.

"We see. And who are you sweetie?"

A victim of the Holy Grail War, just like you. That's why I so badly want to say that you're right, that taking revenge on those who did your sister wrong to lay her rest isn't a mistake. I know that lately your sister has been on your mind as well. You've been thinking about her so much that you might go mad.

"Someone who recently realized he's an idiot. But that's why I'm a magus."

Those who aim to throw themselves into a maelstrom without knowing what awaits them on the other side. There is no guarantee the magus nor his descendants will arrive at the promised land. One could say that there is no end. There can never be any compensation for those who are already gone, neither is there any hope for those who are yet to run their portion of this race. The people who are called magi are either those cannot grasp the concept of "impossible," or are simply idiots who cannot give up.

But Icecolle, that's the precious truth which separates us.

"And what has being a magus ever brought you? Pain, misplaced pride, and a dead sister. All for the sake of what? A metal owl sitting on your shoulder? How can that ever be worth the sacrifices?"

Every one of the owl's feathers was hand-crafted and alchemically treated so rather than a tool, it looks like a living creature. Mr. Musik spat out that, "Bah, this might even be my greatest work to date." I don't disagree with him.

"You're right, Icecolle. All the pursuit of Magic has ever brought people is suffering and dead sisters. You would know the best; after all, you are magecraft itself. But magecraft is also the reason why I'm here right now and I need to believe there's at least an iota of meaning in that. That instead of escaping, I came into your throne room to fight one more time."  
 _  
The only time that a magus will ever choose to fight…"_  
 _  
-_ is when he has something that he can't give up.  
 **  
"Bubo—"**

"Hoot, Hoooooooot"

Hearing her name, the owl immediately comes to life, spreads its argent wings, and circles her master.

"That's what Gordes was doing instead of making our body."

The instant Icecolle stands up her black dress of malignant information bubbles and flows around her until veins of black cover the poor woman's body like a spider web.

"When you mentioned your bodies were eroding, I incorrectly assumed that you were an aging soul who was taking over bodies. But it's nothing like that isn't it. The core of malignant information is hollow, a zero, and the remaining personality of the person you are taking over is a one. All those niceties, all that curtesy you extended to me – like that delicious tea – aren't you. They're the fragments of the woman whose spirit, husband, and son you killed. At the same time, malignant information itself erodes reality. It might be okay if it's a small quantity; however, when it's as concentrated as you are, it begins to purge whatever it touches. There's no way a human body can withstand that so you try your best to contain yourself.

"That's why you sought a homunculus body. Rather, that's why you sought to be contained within a proper vessel meant to grant wishes. Your core may be hollow, but you are made of wishes – the warped hopes and dreams of Celenike's internet victims, and you represent a wish – the deepest and final wish of the Icecolle."

The compatibility between Icecolle and the homunculus is too optimal, as if they were made for each other. Functionally immortal, even if the mystery isn't anything close to a materialized soul, there is no doubt in how much calamity she could bring about. After all, a new-born homunculus barely has a personality. All that will be left controlling the body will be a distorted, unfiltered [ruby=curse]wish[/ruby] for vengeance.

The embodiment of Nemesis.

I'm not here to stop that. In fact, as a magus, it would impossibly interesting to see. Instead,

Victim to victim.

Assailant to assailant.

Dead sister to dead sister.

We're here to figure out where do we go on from there.  
 **  
"Go-!"** I command my familiar, now a silver light speeding across the throne room into Icecolle's heart.

"Did you learn nothing, sweetie?" She snaps her fingers and initiates a large-scale ritual.

The ceiling erupts in materialized curses shaped as arrows. Dark and oppressive, each one would spell certain death for Bubo, but the silver owl weaves through the rain of arrows like a small propeller plane through a tropical storm.

"It's certainly better built than the other one." Icecolle dryly states as she watches her certain death approaching. No matter what substance Icecolle is made out of, she still needs the body to move around. The malignant information won't have a host any longer if Bubo pierces her heart. "I really wanted you to acknowledge us sweetie. I thought that at least you would feel the same way. It's a coincidence that you came to this castle, but that is why it's so miraculous."

Making its way through another wave of arrows shot out of the ceiling drums, Bubo closes in on the witch.

"Those who these sub-category Holy Grail Wars hurt, there's no reason why we shouldn't lick our wounds together and make things right. That's all I ever wanted, to make things right for my sister, for myself. I know you agree with me. But, Bram, sweetie, if you're going to keep rejecting me like this-"

The final barrage clips one of Bubo's wings, but her aim is still true enough to keep her straight. In the next second she will go through Icecolle's heart and bring this to an end.

"Then-"

But Bubo never makes it.

"-It seems like I have to _show_ you what I mean."

The entire throne room goes dark as all the lanterns are extinguished.

What is even darker is the dress of malignant information revealing its true form. The veins widen and spread through the woman's entire body, forming intricate tattoos. But there's one tattoo, one pitch-black carving, that is always solemnly gazing at its next sacrifice.

Spread across her chest is a giant ice-cold eye – Icecolle's true form, the living crest of the family.

And when the eye opens, it weeps. The wave of curses and malignant information crests at the ceiling, sweeping Bubo into me and I am pulled under that wave.

Drowning in something that erodes my entire existence, I can't help but think that there's something both she and I have forgotten. 

-Lately, my mind has been on my sister.  
 _  
What was the face she made when she found out that she was to be betrothed?_

-Lately, my mind has been on my sister.  
 _  
What was the face she made when she was leaving to fight in that sub-category Holy Grail War?_

-Lately, my mind has been on my sister.  
 _  
What was the face she made when she was killed?_  
 _  
And most importantly, Bram, if your mind has honestly lately been on your sister._  
 _  
What was the face she made when she found out that she was born only to be your spare?_

I… don't… know…  
 _  
And why don't you know?_

Because I think…. I think that I never bothered to look. Sola Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri was my sister, but I don't think I ever cared about her. She was just some piece of furniture that would eventually be given away to someone else.  
 _  
So, Bram, is that your sin? Is that why you can't forgive yourself?_

I'm not sure, but that's why I want you to be right. I want you to be right so that I can do something for my sister even if I never did when she was alive. So, even if she was torn to pieces by a hail of bullets, I can show her that I cared. It's not something that a magus should care about, but I can't help it.

-After all, I'm human too.

-After all, I'm a victim as well.

Having my sister taken away before I could show her any affection, having her taken away before I could understand her, having her taken away before I could just once be a proper brother for her is too cruel, it's just too unfair.  
 _  
Then if it's cruel, destroy it._  
 _  
Then if it's unfair, remake it._  
 _  
You're a magus aren't you, Bram? Even more than that, you're to be one of the Twelve Lords of the Clock Tower. Surely it wouldn't be too difficult for you._  
 _  
Hurt all the people who hurt your sister._  
 _  
For all of us._

And from the malignant darkness, they appear. Each figure is blurry, and while some of them might be as young as children, there are others that look impossibly frail. Yes, it would be impossible for me to mistake who these people are.

Every single person who has ever died in the sub-category Holy Grail Wars.

"Why did this happen to us?" They mourn.

"Why can't you help us?" They beseech.

"Why won't you avenge us?" They curse.

I…  
 _  
You aren't in the wrong. It's those who killed your sister who are wrong – just like those who persecuted my family, just like Gordes, Caules, and Fiore who all stood by and let Celenike die._  
 _  
I'm sure that your brother-in-law will be much more at peace when you avenge him._

A figure approaches me from the right, but you're not Kayneth so don't you dare touch me!  
 _  
I'm sure that your sister will be much more at peace when you avenge her._

A figure approaches me from the left, but you're not Sola so don't you dare touch me!  
 _  
I'm sure you'll be much more at peace when you avenge her._

 **You're both fakes. You both aren't here; after all, you died. There is no way that you can be here and even if you're here you're just a clump of malignant information using whatever image I have of you in my mind to create a version of yourself so then it doesn't matter so I won't feel like the worst brother in the world I won't feel guilty I won't feel so impossibly guilty that I need to take it upon myself to avenge you.  
**  
Just… get away from me!  
 _  
To move away from the past, you know that a sacrifice is always necessary, sweetie._

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Thus, all the ice-cold eyes in the world will be blind.

In this manner, I can export my suffering, my guilt, my pain onto someone else who will in turn export it to someone else, weaving a web of curses.

It sounds too good to be true. At the same time, from the bottom of my heart I know that it is true. That's why it's so tempting, so alluring.  
 _  
After all, lately, hasn't your mind been on your sister?_

That's right. It has been. I'm sorry. I'm so terribly, terribly, sorry.

I've never been able to make my sister happy. I've never wanted to make my sister happy.

So, for once, just once, let me do something for her.

So that she can move on.

So that I can move on.

With that, I hang my head and start to sink into the mud while my entire world begins to turn into a cursed, cold, black.

This is the natural and only choice that has ever been allowed for Br-

"Hoooo-oot, Hoooo-oot."

But if this is the only choice that has been allowed for me, why is my non-existent right arm glowing?

One final memory. One more time.

At the end, our families decided to bury them together. They were to be married and they died together, so it seemed disrespectful to split such a loving couple apart. At least that's what all the relatives said, reassuring themselves that they did the right thing by Kayneth and Sola.

Of course, at the same time, those very same relatives were looting the spoils that came from the death of a Lord. They took land, apprentices, assets, and Mystic Codes, then proclaimed because another relative took that pair of Mystic Eye Killers, they were entitled to, nay, they deserved another grimoire.

When we finally stood on the melting snow, watching the coffins being lowered into the earth, there weren't that many magi attending. If I looked to my right I would see my ever-stalwart father and if I looked to my left, I would see a little blonde girl who would grow up to still be a little blonde girl but with an exceptionally sharp tongue. Finally, if I craned my head to look far to the right, I would see someone about my own age, a no-named magus who survived the sub-category Holy Grail War my sister and her fiancée lost their lives in.

I don't know why I'm revisiting this memory. While this was a sad occasion, it wasn't the moment I started to think about my sister. Instead, that was the culmination of small happenings that eventually snowballed into an obsession. Individual threads that, with time, were eventually woven together, weaving the me that is currently drowning in the mud.

But for some reason, I think this memory is different from the rest.

"Hoot-!"

An impatient cry that shouldn't exist here. Following the sound, I snap my head back to the ceremony where a priest with a bowl haircut who was also an alleged Templar starts the sermon.  
 **  
"The dead cannot return,  
That which hath passed is forever lost."**

But even individual threads still need something to tie them all together. This might not be the moment I started thinking about my sister, but it was the moment I understood that she was never coming back. Never caring about what she was doing, what she was feeling, I failed as her brother, and I could never make it up to her. I could no longer apologize.

 **"** **No matter how great a miracle,  
It may only affect those who still exist." **

A tear forms in my left eye.

Ahhhh, so this is what I forgot and what you never had the chance to hear.

I tightly grip my non-existent right hand.

We are the ones who are left behind, trying to do our best for those who have already passed. That's why you want to avenge the people who couldn't protect your sister.

But Icecolle, the dead are dead, they don't care. They don't care if you spit on their grave, make a charity in their name, or avenge them– that's what being dead means. You see Icecolle, the only reason to avenge someone is because you yourself feel the need to avenge someone. Unable to process your grief, the only release you have is inflicting that pain you feel onto someone else.

-Just like how a funeral is held so the living can mourn the dead.

We are victims, those who were left behind by the people we held dear to us. But it's a mistake to hurt others for the sake of those we lost because from the moment our loved one's hearts stopped beating they stopped wanting anything at all.

If that is the case, the only thing we can do…

"Hooo-oot, hooo-oot"

Hearing the screeching of my now glowing familiar, the figures accept my answer and recede back into the darkness, forming a path.

Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri has always taken the easy path…

"Hoot, hooooo-t"

As if urging me on, Bubo takes to the sky, showing me the way.

-So there's no better time to start taking a more difficult one.

One step at a time, I make my way down this muddy corridor. With each step, I look all the figures who won't be saved, who won't be avenged, and I smile.

Humans aren't beings who need to be avenged.

People are born and spend their entire lives relying on each other. Like that, we weave a single thread out of our lives and then after we die, this thread is added to the grand tapestry known as Humanity.

The ones who come after depend on the work of those who came before. All we want is for someone who comes after us to use our work to create something greater and more beautiful than what we already had – to reach the stars that we could only dream of touching. In that manner, the earth spins, people die, and new people are born to not just take their place but to further what was already there.

And the final place that we reach when we follow that shining silver owl is this balance.

With my heart on one side and single pure white feather on the other, there is no way that this can be Nemesis's balance.

There is neither a scribe nor a weigher because **_I_** will be the one to judge myself.  
 _  
Then, answer me Bram, what do those who have lost everything and were left behind have?_

I reach for the balance with my nonexistent hand.  
 _  
What can people like us possibly have?_

-Let me show you, Icecolle.

And light envelops this world.

"How are you still alive!"

That's strange, someone is yelling at me.

"A torrent of curses like that should have burned the flesh right off your bones. So then how, how are you still alive, Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri?"

That's right, Icecolle unleashed a torrent of malignant information at me and…

I look at the silver owl in my hands.

Oh, so you must be the one who protected me.

Thank you, Bubo but please bear with me for a little while longer, okay? I promise that I'll give you some nice ether clumps after all this is over. So, wake up, will you?

"Hoooooooot," she protests, but still opens her wings and takes flight. Now it's my turn.

Groaning, I push myself off the floor before dusting off my knees. I'm a little unsteady, but that's okay. My entire body aches and I think I have a few burns, but my family's magic crest should be able to deal with those. I must have avoided most of the damage, somehow.

"No matter. No matter at all." Icecolle retains her composure before raising her hand to activate all of the drums again. This time I'm the one the cursed arrows will aim at.

"Hooo-oot, Ho-ooot"

But the spell never activates and we are only left with two victims facing each other and an owl circling above.

"How! How did you do that?!" Icecolle snarls. For the first time, she looks bewildered. First, me surviving the torrent of malice and now her magecraft won't activate. I can't hope to understand what's going on in her mind.

"One of the first techniques a student of spiritual evocation learns is placing a spirit into a vessel. In the ancient times, birds were though to carry the souls of the dead. Therefore, Bubo makes the perfect familiar for collecting the vengeful spirits of the witches in this castle."

Icecolle, the eye on the woman's chest, opens even wider. "Ammit, The Devourer of the Dead! Gordes used the core of your previous familiar for this one as well. Your familiar doesn't just collect spirits, it also converts them into magical energy. But what… just what on earth did you use as the core?"

"A feather of Ma'at. I'm still not sure if it is real though."

"Even if it's fake, considering its nature and ours, it may have protected you," Icecolle gasps. "However, even if it's a relic from the Age of Gods, it's a trick that can only work once."

Ma'at, the goddess of truth and justice – cosmos. The Egyptian creation story states that the world started as a lifeless, hollow, chaotic water – Nu. While order cannot compare to the blazing sun that emerged out of the Benben, at the same time, it is the natural enemy of Nu. More than that, it's a promise to-

"No, that doesn't make any sense. Even if it was real, the feather of Maat is the feather of an ostrich! There's no way an ostrich feather can produce an owl." She gnashes her teeth in frustration.

"Job 30:29, 'I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of [ruby=owls]ostriches[/ruby].' There's more if you want me to continue."

"But that shouldn't matter. If the foundation you're using is Egyptian, why would something like Christianity be involved at all?"

"Rather than worrying about solving the mystery, shouldn't you be worried about what you're going to do now you have lost your ammunition?"

Icecolle was able to activate such a large-scale magecraft with a single action because she was using the grudges of vengeful spirits who were trapped in this castle as curses. The shamanic drums amplified their century old obsessions and hatred until they became cursed arrows, striking down all those who transgressed on their cage.

However, Bubo is a silver owl who devours spirits and turns them into magical energy. Not matter how many drums this throne room might have, they're just drums unless there are vengeful spirits for them to convert and amplify.

"Hoooo-ot, Hooot." Comes a triumphant screech on my right shoulder.

That's right, Bubo. It would be completely useless if all you could do was eat spirits and convert them into magical energy. After all, magical energy isn't something that is stored, it's something that moves, changes, transforms.

Hearing Bubo's shriek, the web of curses that makes up Icecolle thickens and becomes more concentrated. She must finally see me as a threat.

I close my eyes and remember what Mr. Musik taught me.

The image is a thread being sewn into my body. Stitch by stitch, the needle digs into my skin before making its way to the other side, tying two things that were once separated.

My magic circuits immediately start moving and my body feels as though it has burst into flames. Forcing the sensation of something inhuman tearing my body apart down, I generate the sufficient amount of magical energy and weave it into Bubo, activating the magic formula embedded in her.

She glows cherry red for a moment, then liquefies on my stump.

This is true magecraft.

It might not be as extravagant as the ground blossoming into stone flowers.

It might not be as terrifying as homing cursed fingers fired out of a shotgun.

It might not be as majestic as a dragon made of lightning.

A supernatural power, no doubt. A power that only the chosen few in this world are permitted to learn and wield.

But it is not a power that changes the world. After all, humans have been changing the world with their own two hands for eons. There is no way that magecraft is such a redundant power.

It is not a power that changes oneself. After all, the world we all live in changes us no matter how hard we fight it. There is no way that magecraft is such a useless power.

True, honest, unadulterated mystery is the manifestation of the hidden links, no, the hidden weaves that knit this world together. It is a single red ribbon of fate in an endless loom of white.

Those who can see this red ribbon and appreciate it for what is are called magi. And those who are able to see the white ribbons as red are the greatest of magi.

-Those who see this mundane world in all its extraordinary, mysterious glory.

I… am not one those people. I realize that now. Instead, I am just a privileged brat who can't forget the sister he lost. All I am, all I ever was, is a bona-fide spiritual evoker – someone so lost, so alone, that in some misguided attempt for solace, we tie ourselves to death and attempt to resurrect the spirits of those who abandoned us to this mortal coil. Hanging onto ghosts, hanging onto records rather these precious memories, hanging onto our own fake superiority even if we know that our existences are weaker and thinner than the very spirits we try to conjure, we lock ourselves up in our workshops, knotting ourselves to everything we have lost.

So, all I can do –

All Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri has ever been able to do is take hold of a lone red ribbon as tightly as possible, vowing to himself to never let it go. And with eyes firmly fixed onto the past and with only that single red ribbon as a guide, stumble into the void that all magi must walk into.

And one day…

And one day, in the far future, perhaps I will have done my part in helping those who come after me to reach the greatest mystery of all – the truth.

A truth I will never reach today, not matter how complete my understanding is of this apocryphal catharsis.

But that's okay, that's alright. I continuously repeat those words like some sort of incantation to reassure myself.

There are things we spend our entire lives searching for that we never find. There are things we spend our entire lives trying to overcome that we will never come close to. There are wounds that will never heal no matter what spells we use.

Lately, my mind has been on my sister so I know that. Lately, my mind has been on my sister so I know that so well with every fiber in my body it hurts.

But that's alright, that's okay.

I didn't want to admit it, but fundamentally, me and her are the same. Drowning, whether literally or mentally in the deaths of those we held dear, we only sought to do what we believed best honored their memories, willingly or unwillingly.

Therefore, if we are the same and she is magecraft that has obtained consciousness. The only magecraft I could have spun, the only magecraft that I could have woven has to be something that mirrors this cursed woman with ice cold eyes.

"Adjudicate, [ruby=Airgetlám]Silver Arm[/ruby]!"

Attaching herself to where my arm was cleanly cleaved off, Bubo has transformed into something only spoken about in myth and legend.

"Imitating not only a Divine Construct but also an Authority!" She laughs. "What nerve you have!"

That's… not the case. This mystic code isn't as glorious as a Noble Phantasm, sacred as a Divine Construct, nor is it as rule-breaking as an Authority.

This arm of silver…

This arm of silver that a better man than I forged for me merely represents the responsibilities that I have run away from and all the burdens that I have to bear from now on.

It is a small, wretched thing cobbled together from the remains of worlds that were trampled on and then assimilated. Forgotten worlds we can do nothing but look back on and yearn for.

So if that is the case, this cannot be anything other than my Supreme Code.

Looking at it objectively, this may be nothing compared to malignant information that has festered for years in the quantum world, materialized as a curse which then obtained a body and a consciousness. But like I said before, this is the truest magecraft I can muster, so I don't think I'm going to lose.

I let my magic circuits spin as fast as they can while lowering my center of gravity.

Icecolle sneers, "We finally meet, Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri." 

Barrages of curses are continuously flung across the room. So that they can be shot as fast as possible, each is a cluster filled with the unprocessed malice of a century old ambition comprised of so much magical energy that it can do physical damage.

The throne room rocks as the walls splinter and break before the unyielding might of these curses. With the momentum of cannonballs but fired at the speed of machine-gun fire, even one brush would render me unable to fight and dead within the next few seconds.

But each time certain death rushes towards me, I bat it away with a silver light.

Right, I need to diverge all surplus magical energy into reinforcing my eyes and ears, while increasing blood flow to my brain. It doesn't matter if I'm unable to defend against each curse, I only have to react – [ruby=Airgetlám] Silver Arm[/ruby] will take care of the rest.

The basic principle behind spiritual evocation is to summon a spirit and let it possess an object, giving the item certain properties or at least an awareness. Alleged cursed objects that are too common in pseudo-documentaries about the occult and supernatural fall into this category. One fitting example of actual spiritual evocation would be the patented [ruby=Bronze Link Manipulator] Attached Reinforcement Type Mystic Code[/ruby] of the Yggdmillennia. Placing a dog's spirit into each leg, the mystic code is able to automatically detect and defend the magus without the need for much magical energy at all. Airgetlám works on the same principle; however, the spirit inside running everything –

Three clumps of malice fly past my right thigh, left shoulder, and left ear. But a shining silver light deflects the two that would have squarely landed on my chest and right cheek.

I could re-allocate someone of the magical energy that was gathered into reinforcing my entire body. Doing so would mean I could move towards her rather than being pinned down, only being able to deflect the curses that are fatal. However, I've never trained my body; therefore, reinforcement can only make this situation worse.

"We've still got more sweetie. You might have taken my spirits away but we're more than enough to destroy you."

The spirits of the witches who lived in this castle.

The malignant information that makes her existence up.

We both have extraordinary amounts of magical energy available to us but no time to mold it into any magecraft that took time to learn. Without the spirits, she can no longer instantly activate the drums. Between the moment it takes for her to weave the curse and knot it to the drums, I'll be able to sprint in and split her in half. Therefore, all she can do is keep throwing curses at me while I keep deflecting them. In that sense, we are equal, but –  
The room shudders more violently as five more curses are deflected into the walls. However, even after everything settles, the room is still convulsing.

Wait… is that the room or is it me then?

Fading, my consciousness must be fading away. I've been running off pure adrenaline so far, but even the effects of that must be going away.

My right arm starts to revolt. It makes sense; after all, it is something that was never supposed to be attached to a human in the first place. Reaching for the balance, I told myself that I would be judged. Therefore, I shouldn't be surprised about this at all. The malignant information Icecolle is shooting at me make up her being. Therefore, should I be any different? To defend against something like that, I have no other option than to continually shave off my own life!

"Aaaaaagggghhhhh!"

I scream to throw off my pain so this silver arm can keep repelling the encroaching malignant darkness.

"Hush now, you've done a good job. Soon you'll be able to rest." Icecolle smiles as she continues to fire off curses. "You're at your limit and you've used that weapon so many times that I understand the mystery, so it's okay Bram, it's okay to give up. You've done enough."

"The mystery…" It takes most of my energy to say that. "It was never a mystery in the first place."

She laughs at that, "Surely you must be mistaken sweetie. Compared to the other one, this is quite the mystery you and Gordes have cooked up. The Airgetlám and a silver owl with the core as a feather of the goddess Ma'at, truly, it's quite the mystic code."

The silver arm is obvious, it's a replica of the Divine Construct and the Authority of the Celtic War God, Nuada.

"The owl on the other hand is the companion of the Greek Goddess of Wisdom, Bright-Eyed Athena. It can only be silver because of the Athenian Tetradrachm was called the owl. I doubt Gordes had Tetradrachms, so you only used cast silver? Why I'm sure Gordes blew a fuse over that, hah!"

The pain intensifies and I feel as though I'm losing more and more of myself; however, letting my precision go down for even a split-second is fatal. At the same time, I need to keep my mind away from how rapidly close to I am to approaching self-destruction. Therefore, the only available thread I can hold onto to keep my sanity is her explanation.

If we actually had access to those silver coins, Bubo would be a lot sturdier. While I was fine with using the silver that we had in the workshop or for Mr. Musik to transmute a lesser metal into silver, Mr. Musik went wild. It seems he doesn't understand that desktop theory doesn't always translate into something practical.

"The Feather of Ma'at is the other side of the balance of justice in the Hall of Two Truths. If the weigher's heart is heavier than the feather, Ammit, shall eat the heart. However, Ammit is just one side of Taweret, another crocodile goddess, the protectress of childbirth. The dead and the living are just two sides of a more primordial crocodile goddess.

"Finally, wisdom, therefore Sophia. In magecraft, that is tied to the Gnostic Sophia and the Divine Logos that it represents. A feminine aspect that it may be, it was also known as a syzygy for the Son. Because it is a syzygy that make it possible to tie into something as masculine as a War God's arm."

The three separate mysteries that make up this mystic code. And what is the thing that ties them together?

"[ruby=Recapture Lost Wisdom]Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri[/ruby]."

Just like the Icecolle, our name itself is a promise, a promise to re-tread the past to find the things we have lost so that we can move forward.

"How fitting!" Icecolle shrieks. "We're the same, trapped by our names, forever left behind until we can find it in ourselves to move forward. So then, let me test you. Let me test the Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri name that so fervently rejects me!"

The barrages stop and I wobble, almost falling to the ground.

Tired, I'm too tired. I need to rip this thing off my arm before it –

Boom, Boom.

One by one the drums on the ceiling come crashing down between Icecolle and myself. They fall onto the ground and then rearrange themselves in mid-air until they also form the shape of an eye.

"I'm about to show you everything that the Icecolle possess. All our pain, all our suffering, all our hopes, all our curses. Please, take all of us and understand just how depraved this world is those who have lost – us."

And Icecolle unleashes every part of herself. The malignant information that makes up her existence is shot into the drums which amplifies and spreads it like a spider web towards me. The last wave is nothing compared to this. In less than a second, that torrent of concentrated malignant information will erode my entire being.

But I slow down my breathing, remove the limiter on my magic circuits, and raise [ruby=Airgetlám]Silver Arm[/ruby] to meet the torrent of mud, turning that second into an infinite amount of time.

My magic circuits spin at fever pitch and generate manifold times more magical energy than safely possible. However, the pain is mild compared to my right arm's rejection.

My left eye socket fractures.

My skin tears in several places, peeling off like a wrinkled apple.

My brain sizzles, frying itself due to the amount of magical energy being processed.

In fact, anyone standing right next to me would only smell burning flesh.

But I disregard all of that, because right now, all I have to do is reach for a mystery that I always knew was there but always neglected.

Right, just like Mr. Musik told me to, it's time to weave these three separate red threads together.

Nuada, the Celtic War God, the shining savior and king of the Tuatha De Danann. However, even if he is a War God, he is also a fertility god deeply related to the waters. The waters that Taweret, the very symbol of the Nile controls. In this role, she takes on the role of Neith, mother of Sobek-Re. In Theosophy, Neith, the weaver of destiny, along with Bright-Eyed Athena, are known as goddesses of wisdom that make up and represent the companion and the other side of the Savior, Sophia.

I start to activate a magic formula and weave the mystery thread by thread. In and out, in and out, and at the end, I knot the threads together as tightly as possible. Like this, I shall construct the spell. There's no time for actions, there's not time for bars, I am just taking all the magical energy Bubo has gathered and I have generated then shooting it with [ruby=Airgetlám] Silver Arm[/ruby] as the barrel!

A silver flare attempts to penetrate the overwhelming torrent of mud. The two streams contend, but the mud will win, the mud always wins. Primordial in nature, it is both the expression of humanity since language was invented as well as the embodiment of the curses that have now evolved and taken over the quantum world.

No matter the mystery, no matter how tightly this magecraft is woven together, it is nothing more than a single basket trying to hold back a sea.

But that's why I can't let go.

There's a common saying in the world of magecraft that no matter what the mystery is, as long as you flip the switch, keep your magic circuits running, and pay the price, you'll reach whatever you were looking for. Right, that's why a magus only fights when there is something he cannot lose – something that is more important than his own life.

Disregard the pain; that is only telling you to stop.

Disregard your breaking body; you can take care of that afterwards.

Keep weaving. Just keep weaving. And if you run out of magical energy to weave, then weave your magic circuits, your body, mind, and even your soul. It doesn't matter if you use your entire existence to continue weaving this mystery because eventually you will finish what you set out to sew.

The dead are dead. They will not come back. What you're weaving is a tapestry of their lives that you'll proudly hang to show they were once here.

No matter who they were, what they did, or how they died, something radiant will remain. Even if this mud corrodes everything that I am, as long as I believe in that brilliance, it doesn't matter if I lose the fight.

Pain racks through my entire body to the point where I lower my eyes while my right arm slightly slackens.

"Giving up so soon, brother?"

Until a voice I thought I'd never hear again jolts me back to my previous stance.

"He may as well if he's resorted to using modern magecraft like Theosophy as part of the basis for the magical formula. My, my, Bram, you still have a long way to go."

"Stop teasing him Kayneth El-Melloi. What have you ever made? A blob of mercury."

Ah. It doesn't matter if they're only hallucinations caused by the overuse of magical energy, being able to hear their voices one last time….

"Keh keh keh," A different person, also behind me, apologizes. Her voice sounds like nails scrapping a chalkboard. "Sorry for leaving you this mess, young Lord. The wish of the Icecolle should have never turned out like this. We were confused, angry, and desperate. We still maintain that we were right, but I think we can all say that we should have handled it more tactfully."

Hundreds of voices murmur in agreement behind me, but among those hundreds, one voice is clearer than the rest.

"Brother, I –"

But I cut off whatever she was going to say.

"Sola. I never understood you. I never wanted to understand you." I take a breath, "But I… I am glad that you were my sister."

And two strands of a thread that were always separated reconnect for a moment. Illusionary it may be, trivial it may seem, but at the end I can still be proud of myself for saying it.

-Some utterly meaningless words a magus would never say.

"Enough with the sentimentality. Bram, are you ready for one last lesson?"

Fighting back tears, I nod at Kayneth's voice.

There is no magecraft that can bring forth the dead. Even spells that summon spirits can only summon the leftover thoughts, the emotions of the people who were once here. Therefore, I can only keep insisting that this is impossible, that the two hands I feel on my shoulders are just a hallucination.

"Ready, Bram?"

"Ready, brother?"

We are only alive because of the people who came before us. Because they came before us, usually they will inevitably leave before we do – whether naturally or because they participated in some magical war, it is a fact of life that is just as sad. And those of us who are left must ask ourselves –

The moments we lost, how can we make up for them?

The people we lost, how can we repay our dues to them?

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—"

-I scream and process all the spirits that Bubo captured at once. Magical energy beyond anything my magic circuits are capable holding is shot through [ruby=Airgetlám]Silver Arm[/ruby] and starts to envelop the mud.

"Impossible! You'll burn out faster than you can maintain that much magical energy!"

The answer is that you can't, Icecolle, you just… can't.

All we can do is weave the best thread we can and leave it behind for the victims who will come after us. I think that you know that better than most people, Icecolle. But in my case, instead a cursed thread…

-I want to leave behind a shining, silver thread of magecraft.

Slowly, the silver light overwhelms the mud and then the room as the drums are crushed one by one, causing an explosion that throws both of us against windows that still don't crack.

I might not have braced myself, but unlike her, I expected this reaction so I get up first.

"Argh-!"

Pain runs through my body. It's the feedback of using magecraft above my ability. It feels like every single bone on my body has turned to jelly and all my nerves have been plucked out. But if I don't move, in the next few seconds, Icecolle will get up and finish the job.

"Go, Bram."

"Go, brother."

"Go, you idiot. Don't you have a delivery to make?"

Two ephemeral hands and one as solid as his mustache pushes me forward. Using the momentum, I break off into a sprint.

"Bram, sweetie." Icecolle is already conscious. Even if half her body was blown away, the remaining mud is replacing the lost organs. However, the mud can only support so much of her. Even if it is brimming with magical energy and spiritrons, it is still "nothing," at its core. Even the strongest delusion can only exist in this world for so long.

I look at my mystic code. There are deep fractures running throughout the peerless silver. There is no way I could use it to defend against an attack that uses most of Icecolle's remaining mud. In that respect, I've lost.

I was one step too late, then.

But Icecolle doesn't move an inch from where she is. She just hangs her head and laughs.

"What a hypocrite you are, sweetie. You still don't understand, do you? We're the same! For crying out loud, just look at your arm." The eye on her chest recedes until it is a black dress once more. "Can't you see that the only reason you defeated us was because we cut your arm off? And guess what, you are right to hold that malice, that hate towards us. By killing us, all you are doing is proving our point! In fact, this is the ideal result. Do it. Take this life because you realize that the only way that humans can move on after losing something is taking something as compensation – to avenge what was lost like you are doing right now."

"You're the one who doesn't understand." My right arm on her chest, I whisper into her ear the promise I made to Mr. Musik.

He asked, _"_ _What do you want me to help you with?"_

"I'm going to save her."

I smile and recite the incantation for a light that reveals everything to whatever it pierces.

"[ruby=Dead End – Claíomh Solais] Illuminate, Sterling Spirit Blade [/ruby]."

[ruby=Airgetlám] Silver Arm[/ruby] shatters, but not before a glaive of pure silver light penetrates Icecolle's heart.

I fall to my knees and before long I can only see silver. I don't think that's because of the spell though, so I must finally be losing consciousness. I might not be able to see the end, but I've fulfilled my role.

It's all up to you now.

Icecolle had won.

She withstood Bram's final attack and even if she would die in the next few minutes if she couldn't find another body to take over, Bram's body was right in front of her. Even if the body was incompatible and would rot in a few days Gordes was almost finished with the homunculus body. Furthermore, Bram basically admitted to her with his actions that she was correct. For those who are left behind, the correct way to move forward is to avenge those who are gone.

She was the winner, so why was she on the ground convulsing as though something was tearing her entire body apart from inside?

"Icecolle, you made one fatal mistake." A rough voice from above. She recognizes it.

"There is no mistake, Gordes. We've won. Soon, we'll pour ourself into that homunculus body and finally kill you in Celenike's name."

"Really?" He raises a bushy eyebrow. "You don't look like you've won."

"This is nothing. We'll use the malignant information as replacement limbs so we can take over Bram's body." She frowns, concentrates even more, and frowns even deeper. "W-Why isn't this body listening to us?"

"The one mistake that you made," Gordes grimaces. "Bram told me the story about the original owner of that body. The hostess you killed here before killing her husband and her son."

"Yes, what does that have to do with—"

Gordes gives a tiny nod. "Bram is a spoilt idiot most of the time. However, as a magus who evokes spirits… he's not that bad."

Even if the woman that Icecolle killed hadn't gone through any training and she was just a distant relative, she was still an Icecolle witch. And all Icecolle witches who die in the fortress...

"The spirit he evoked to control his mystic code, it was her!"

Icecolle can't say another word. As if the spirit was waiting for Icecolle to realize who it was before shutting off her speech functions.

With his final spell, Bram took the spirit out of the mystic code and injected it into Icecolle. That was why he said there was no mystery behind the mystic code. The original purpose of a spiritual evocation is to link the messages of the past to those who are still living in the present so there can be a future. The magus is no more than the messenger.

"So Icecolle, you got Bram's message, but can you understand it?"

The body shakes as if touched by a divine revelation as Icecolle wordlessly screams. It's the first time she's the one who is being corroded from the inside out. If Icecolle cannot control the body, she cannot substitute the organs she lost with the malignant information. If the body dies, Icecolle will be nothing more than a globule of a dissipating malignant information. But Icecolle doesn't understand.

While it might be the hostesses' original body, she is still just your typical vengeful spirit. Icecolle is a curse many magnitudes greater than such refuse. Yet, every single time Icecolle tries to break the spirit down, it reforms, refusing to give up control of the tiniest amount of tissue.

She is an obsession… just like Icecolle.

She is a wish… just like Icecolle.

So then why can't Icecolle help but think they are different?!

"A vengeful spirit can't obtain new information. They can only repeat the same regret from when they died over and over again. No matter much you fight it, implore it, or ignore it, it will keep repeating that single regret. You're the only one who was with her when she died. What did she say when you killed her, Icecolle?"

Even if she can't move her eyes, Icecolle looks at the throne and remembers how she forced her mud into the throat of a woman wearing that ridiculously homely apron, a woman whose face she is currently wearing. Icecolle wasn't paying much attention back then, but the only two things that woman screamed about were-

Without a doubt, her husband and her child.

However, the vengeful spirit can't know they died.

It cannot know the husband came up to the fortress, prepared to beg Icecolle for his wife back, saw Icecolle's face and had his head lopped off.

It cannot know the son came up to the fortress full of sound and fury, but fell into a pit full of cursed nails.

The spirit does not know that they died, so she is eternally fighting for them.

"You see Icecolle, you didn't lose to Bram Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri or Gordes Musik Yggdmillenia. You simply lost to a mother and her love for her family."

Ahh–

She may have lost all control of her body but Icecolle finally understands.

-This is what a true sacrifice is.

The perverted and distorted sacrifices that the Icecolle perform to power their curses can't even compare to the sanctity and purity of what this degenerate, trivial, weak, human is eternally doing for her family.

She didn't want to be avenged.

All she wanted…

The only thing she wanted…

-Was for those she loved to have a future.

Icecolle's consciousness starts to fade away. Blood is no longer being pumped to any part of the body. In a few seconds, the hostess's brain will stop working and Icecolle will return to being a lump of malignant information, a pure unadulterated thirst for vengeance.

That's why these final moments when she can still think are so precious to her.

She wanted so hard to be acknowledged, but maybe she wanted to be [ruby=overcome] proven wrong[/ruby] even more.

The dead will never come back to life.

All we can do for them, all we've always been able to do for them is to make something even more brilliant.

For those left behind, that is our only solace.

Next time, Icecolle says, next time, I want to become a sliver light that guides someone's path.

Yes… that would be a nice… wish. 


	6. 6

**6/**

In Duat, there is a structure called the Hall of Two Truths. It is said in that building there is a balance. On one side of the balance is your heart and on the other side is a single, white, ostrich feather. For those who have lived a light life, the heart will be lighter than the feather and they are allowed in the afterlife. On the other hand, those who have lived heavily have their heavy heart eaten by the monster on the side of the balance.

I think I'm staring at that mythological scale right now – or many I should say once more. So then, I must have died in that battle against Icecolle and am waiting to see if I can enter the afterlife. Geez, weren't we taught that after the decline of the Age of Gods, mythological underworlds became metaphysical?

"Do not despair. Today is not the day you face judgement." A familiar voice comes from the darkness. "As you can see, sometimes the feather is heavier than the heart and sometimes the heart is heavier than the feather. Undoubtedly, you are still alive."

"Icecolle!" My kidnapper's face comes into view; however, she looks a lot kinder. "No, the woman whose body Icecolle stole?"

The woman smiles radiantly. "Neither. This is currently a strong image for you, so forgive me for borrowing it." She then lowers her head for a moment. "I no longer exist in this era. But if you are referring to the 'me,' you are currently talking to, I am the remaining miniscule fragment of Her power in this artifact."

"So then, should I call you Bubo?"

"If it makes it easier for you, Bram. I may be the impetus, the original mystery that allows your mystic code to work the way it does; however, I am not your mystic code itself."

That doesn't make much sense, but there's a more urgent question.

"Sorry for asking Bubo, but where am I?"

"You were seriously injured during that fight. You used magecraft that was beyond your abilities and paid the price. Your magic crest kept you alive long enough so you could receive the adequate medical attention, but in the modern era, healing is completely focused on the body. As long as the heart is beating, they can keep it alive, but they can't do the same for the mind. That's why I took you into my inner world."

While the doctors or healers repaired the body, the mind would be safe here.

"You've been asleep for weeks, Bram, but it's time to wake up. You have someone waiting for you."

I nod. "Thank you for saving me."

"I have always been here, you just learned to ask."

She smiles once more and for a brief moment before fading, I think I could see a young woman with a scepter in one hand and an ankh in the other.

She must be another one of those hallucinations.

The moment I open my eyes, I realize that everything aches.

"Cheh, the doctors said you'd come out of it today. Didn't think they would be right though." Someone beside my bed grumbles.

I move my arm, trying to take these electrodes and wires off my body. That's when I realize I have something in my left hand – a white ostrich feather.

"You've been holding since I carried you out of that castle. Wouldn't let it go." He looks at it for a moment and snorts. "Pretty sturdy for a feather considering the mystic code was blasted into smithereens. Don't worry, I'll make you another one and this time you can pay double with interest or I'll just patent the design." He looks at me seriously, "And that's how you blackmail a magus, idiot."

Argh, why did I even try to save such a problematic man in the first place?

But enough of that. I look around, trying to get my bearings. There's a television above the bed playing the news and there are some flowers on the left table adjacent to my bed. It seems slightly too sanitary, like Mr. Musik's workshop back in the fortress.

"You're in Saint Francis Episcopal Hospital in New York. You were in pretty bad shape when I dragged you out of there. Your family flew you in."

Ah yes, one of the few modern hospitals that have some of the best facilities and more importantly, don't ask many questions.

"Hmph, that's all well and good." I surprise Mr. Musik. "But why are you here? Shouldn't you be back home or fighting the good fight in your little clan's civil war?"

"Hah—and leave your helpless self? The moment I leave this entire hospital is going to come crashing down on you. You're so incompetent that I decided to work for you!"

He adds how he's already starting to regret it.

But that makes me smile. Mr. Musik might be rough and abrasive, but as long as he's with me, I think I won't stray too far from the new path I did my best to pave.

"What about the Yggdmillennia? I'm sure the other two houses didn't react well to the news about the Icecolle too well."

He dismisses that with the wave of his hand, "That fool can take care of them, he's the head now. I did enough groveling to save us from the Association after we lost the Great Grail War. This change of pace might be nice for me. Anyway, I hear that the new Sagara girl is pretty good too."

Everything wasn't for nothing then. Some people suffered and others were hurt, but we still move forward so that one day…

"Mr. Musik, during the battle, you pushed me, didn't you?"

He looks at me strangely. "Of course, I did. You were dumbly standing there with your mouth open."

I nod. "But when you pushed me did you see –"

I cut myself off and look at the feather in my hand. There will be a hole in my heart if I don't ask this question. The "what if's", the "how was that possible" will plague me for my entire life. But even so….

"Sorry, Mr. Musik, it's nothing. I just wanted to say thank you for helping me."

"Stop being so weird, Bram. Of course, I helped you. I told you that I would, didn't I?"

The dead are gone and can never return. Those of us left behind might be left with nothing. However, to be hollow means one can be filled with anything.

To honor those who gave their lives for us-

To lay the ones we love to rest—

Let's look forward and build something more brilliant, more beautiful anything they have ever known.

Lately, I've been thinking about my sister. But it's about time I started thinking about what's next.


End file.
